There was a few time I came across brands or retailers who sell merchandise out of the crisis which has happened or currently happening in the world. When I state “crisis”, it meant killings, murder, war, violence, riot, pandemic, racism and so on. Questions in my head start to linger, where does this profit go when the consumer purchased the merchandise? Do they earn what they deserved? Does the consumer aware of where their money goes to? Does the company, retailers or brands do this to just spread awareness or giveaway part of the profit as a charity act? There were so many questions at a time.
Crooks & Castle donated 100% sales profit to the World Health Organization’s Solidarity Response Fund during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Stussy donated 100% of sales profit splitting evenly between Black Lives Matter and Equal Justice Initiative.
While brands and artists like Stussy, Crooks & Castle, Futura, Eric Haze, Hypepeace and many more to mention did the right thing profiting zero amount or less to cover just material cost and not labour cost, there is still opportunist which took advantage of the crisis to pocket some good amount for themselves instead. That is unacceptable honestly. The term “spreading awareness” is not valid by selling merchandise and nothing goes anywhere to help the situation. There are many other ways of showing support to a crisis that is happening in the world.
Futura x Eric Haze donated 100% of sales profit to GoFundMe’s AAPI Community Fund.
Hypepeace donated part of the sales proceeds to Sharek Youth Forum and the rest goes to personal project: setting up a screen print studio in West Bank. The studio will be accessible to the local youth and offer the opportunity to learn the art of screen printing.
Human is dying in wars, riots and pandemic and yet we are happily selling graphic tees based on the crisis like #BlackLivesMatter, #StopAsianHate, #FreePalestine & #Covid19 without a single cent donated to the respective organisations and charity body that help to fund victims and families? Think about it. Give it a thought. There’s nothing wrong with creating art and fashion as long there is a clear purpose to it but it is something uncalled for to jump into the hype on sensitive situations and world crisis. That’s ugly for sure.
Photo courtesy: Google image & respective brands/artists.
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